I've been playing GTA Online since the launch, or 3 hours later I suppose. I've been having such a great time so far, but have found quite a few issues that are pissing me off to the max.

My first issue was actually getting the game to run. I found out that so many people have had a problem at the start with the forced first race. It took 3 tries, but since then I have had no connection issues at all (Xbox 360).

The bank: False security

- Early on you are told that if you put your money in the bank it will be safe from other players... but what it fails to mention is that your money is not safe from you dying. I found I lost 2-3K per death. Nasty surprise to find out if you don't know it already.

Missions: Big pay.. but only for the winners

- The missions are absolutely amazing, so fun and cool.... except for one thing. You could be in a 20-30 minute long mission and if your team or you do not win, YOU GET NOTHING!
This turns missions into a gamble of your time if you want to risk throwing away hours for nothing or decent rewards. I don't know why the missions are like this, races and all other activities give partial pay or tiered pay based on how you do.

Occasional Lag: During Single player online instances

- Often times I will do a mission solo so I have a much higher chance of getting a payout at the end, but I find that rarely but occasionally the screen will freeze for 5-10 seconds. I could understand that during a multiplayer online event.. but a single player online event.. how is this even possible?

Other than that, great game. I can't stop playing it even though I occasionally try to. Things open up as you level increasing the depth of the online game and giving more and more to do. Even with these problems I can't stop playing.

I'd been itching for a good RPG lately, so I thought I would see what was happening on Steam. I loaded it up, and then remembered I had The Witcher, and I'd never made it past the 1st town (because so many games).

Played it for a few hours and had a great time, closed it down and looked at steam again and saw The Witcher 2 was for sale, 75% off!. I loaded $10 on my Steam Wallet and bought it for 4.99 (from 19.99 - Originally 49.99).

With the extra $5 I had in the wallet, I thought what the hell, I will buy a few badges and see what this is all about. I saw that I had 4 out of 8 badges for Civ5 and bought the rest for about $0.12 each. Crafted the badge and a cool little animation showed up, and 3 new things appeared in my inventory. Two of them were just junk, backgrounds or emoticons, but the third thing was a Coupon for 90% off Portal 2!!

I checked out the price of Portal 2, and it was $19.99, so I am going to buy it too. The coupon is good for a few weeks, and I can get Portal 2 for $1.99 (from $19.99 - Originally $49.99).

How awesome is that! Two really awesome games for less than $10.
Those badges really aren't so bad at all.

MS, good job on reversing your insane policies. On a side, note, I've noticed that whenever the word policy, or policies comes up it usually means I am getting fucked over somehow.. anyways..

So yeah, rentals, used games, lending. It's back. Excellent, thanks guys... for not being assholes. You aren't finished yet though are you? I still need more before I am going to get that Xbox One.

I need to know that I will not need the kinect to use the new Xbox. I want it to work straight out of the box, with the kinect still sitting in it's wrapping inside the box. I know you've said we can turn off the kinect, but can I take it right out of the picture entirely and maybe even sell it to someone who has a broken one.? I know I do not want it. All these hand motions take me out of the game, and mean I have to put down the controller do a fucking hand motion that a 5mm nudge of the analog stick would easily accomplish.

What else do I need...

You said it is not backwards compatible.. I will give you half of that. I could understand possibly if physical media was not backwards compatible due to some sort of disc or hardware change, but digital sales on the same network (Xbox Live) MUST transfer to Xbox One. I want every single digital purchase I have made (XBLA, and Games-On-Demand) to transfer over and be playable on the Xbox One. This is not impossible, don't give me that bullshit. You guys are always saying the new system is 3 or 4 times as powerful. If that is the case, you can easily emulate it on the Xbox One. . I don't give a shit how you have to do it.... Just do it and I will buy day it One.

I am still waiting, and there is lots of time for these changes to be made. Let us know Microsoft. read

I've been listening to many podcasts and reading a crap ton of gaming news, and there is one thing that people always seem to be missing. I hear so many people call in and say "oh, you only have to connect once every 24 hours, it's not that bad" type of stuff.
This 1 in 24 bullshit is all a smokescreen to have you let down your guard so they can land the fatal blow when you are not expecting.

It is true, 1 in 24 is going to be a requirement.. but did you all forget about the fact that game developers now have access to Microsofts Cloud Processing? What that means is that some of the game is handled on your new Xbox One, while other parts of the game are handled on Microsoft's Servers... and you know what that means.. You need to be constantly connected to the internet, otherwise half your game will not function and it will not work.

These types of games will most likely be rolled out some time after launch, so as not to challenge their statement of "once ever 24 hours".

Xbox One needs to connect once every 24 hours.. but given time more developers will use this "extra juice" for their games, and cause the console to be constantly connected to internet in order to work. read

I watched the reveal live, and until then I had never seen a public suicide before. I think this is the beginning of the end for my favorite game console series. I was sitting there since the start to see even just a quick screenshot flash across with a picture of a game, but the word game was never mentioned for the first 2.5 to 3 minutes!

I am not sure why Microsoft seems to be targeting basic cable users, dumb sports jocks, and people with zero attention spans. All I saw was a way for sports people to watch their sports and now they have the ability to use hand signals.. I guess they never could figure out the controller before, or even a television remote.

I think Xbox One Reveal would have had more success had they used this as their music

I really don't understand any of this shit. The name of the brand new Xbox is the Xbox One..!? That is like naming the new Playstation the PS2. The physical look of the system is a giant box, similar to an old VCR except a lot less buttons on it. They were trying to get sports people hooked, but I bet sports people are busy with sports and not watching tech reveals.

It's apparently "All in One", with the exception that if you want to use any of your 360 games you have to have a 360 plugged in separately! That means that if I was to buy one, I would have a couple games on it but if I wanted to play my library of over 400 360 games I have to use my 360. The games are not being carried over.. To the all in one system? Are you fucking serious?

The achievement system is basically over. Sure they are adding new features to make them a bit more advanced, but there is no set standard for games/dlc and points as there is now. A system that works... oh, and then there is this.. http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-05-24-microsoft-applies-for-patent-on-tv-achievements.. So now if you are using your new Xbox all in One Television box and see a commercial for Doritos or something, and you hold up a bag that you are eating and kinect sees it.. you have +20 achievements to your "GAMERSCORE!!".. Yep, achievements won't have the same appeal "next-gen".

I think the main thing this Xbox One revealed was the Next Gen belongs to PS4 and PC... .... and WiiU, and Microsoft footed the bill for that sweet promotion. I have only one question though. When the new system comes out, can I still buy Xbox 360's? read

I have been going over my bandwidth cap of 120 GB / month for the past few months, and sometimes it is about $50 extra on top of the bill when it's time to pay up. It sucks. I have recently been looking into upgrading my account.

That sounded pretty good, a little faster, and 30 GB more a month for only 10 dollars more. I called them up to order, and just out of the blue I asked if there was anything else I could get..

There was actually, but it was not listed anywhere, but here it is people.
I stayed on my Extreme Package with current speeds, but for $10 more a month... I now have a bandwidth cap of 999,999 GB per month..

That's right! Just shy of a million gigs a month, for an extra 10 bucks! I couldn't believe it. Anyways, as this was such a shock to me, I thought I should mention it here. WIth bandwidth requirements constantly rising something like this might be worth it. With talk of PS4 Possibly streaming 4K video at 100GB/movie or more... yeah this is awesome. I know I am going to make a great use of it, (Apr 22, 204GB used so far). My speed is very fast too, and the extra bandwidth for that price is FAR more value than upgrading everything slightly.

You guys should give them a call and ask about it if you have problems going over your limits. I'm so happy right now! read

Ever since the first few years, Xbox Live has been THE best online service. Thing is, everyone has caught up and surpassed them. PSNPlus was seen as a complete joke when it first came out. Now I am so jealous of PSNPlus users. They have the best paid service.

When Xbox Live first came out as paid, part of what they said was that it is to cover the costs of running multiplayer servers etc. Well, what happened to that? Why is an Online pass suddenly around? I thought my membership fees were for that, that's what you said.

Wait a sec, whats this now. EA is now not only saying an Online pass is required to run servers (Which microsoft said is covered by the paid subscription fee) but now they are closing official servers and renting out ones to players? What the fuck? Where is my god damn xbox live subscription money going now? To put fucking MLB games on my dashboard?

Why am I paying for ads? Wait a sec, it's worse now. Why am I paying a service, to have their service fucking drain my monthly bandwidth cap with unwanted and unstoppable video streams now playing without my consent with full audio (temporarily muted) just draining my cap. That mean I have to pay extra, or not use it as much. This is what I am paying for, to have my bandwidth fucking drained, what a great value!.

Lets not forget that piece of self entitled human garbage called Adam Orth, he's a fucking loser but I am sure the rest of the pack are hiding behind him watching what happens.

PC all the way for me next time, possibly PS4.
Not only that, I will go out of my way to stop anyone and everyone I know from buying a new xbox.

Not only that, but EA and microsoft are cooking up some nasty shit together. I am so done with this shit. I hope the industry crashes and burns hard as fuck. Because you know why, all those Indie developers with their amazing games will rise to the top like a phoenix rising from the ashes of a diarrhea demon. read

Hey everyone, It has been almost a week so far and since the last mysterious update on Xbox Live for the dashboard. While I haven't seen too much in the way of info on what has happened, I did notice somethng different.

Before this update, the video ads in the dashboard had still images and if you hovered over them they would start up or you click to bring you to the video to play it.

Since the latest update I have noticed that these video ads now are constantly streaming video & sound. The sound only plays if you hover over but it is so instant that it must be streaming on mute and the hover over the box cancels the mute.

So now, when I play games all day and night and pass out on my couch with the xbox left on the dashboard, or if I walk away for a while it is now constantly streaming data to my Xbox. Where I live, it is expensive for the internet. Most places have data caps on your bandwidth and if you go over you pay a ridiculous amount. If you leave your xbox on, it will now keep adding to your data cap and possibly to being charged more for going over your bandwidth if you have a small cap.

I haven't seen anyone mention anything about this anywhere, so I thought I'd just put up a little post in case anyone wants to read it. You may not want to leave your xbox on all the time anymore or it could cost you a few extra bucks now, hehe. read

So we all absolutely love Day 1 DLC right. I mean who wouldn't want to go out and buy a game and then get home only to find out there is DLC out already. Makes you really wonder if this DLC was made to be released as an extra charge on customers.

Well, forget that shit. Kalypso has paved the way for a brand new DLC trend. Day Negative 12 DLC!!! That's right folks. The game is out on Feb 12, so why not get ready by grabbing up some DLC (available Feb 1st) so you're ready when the game comes out! *puke*

Oh yeah, the game is called Omerta, City of Gangsters. I noticed the DLC the other day and was like, what the fuck is this, Omerta!! City of Gangsters, this looks cool. I clicked on "View Full Game".
It brought me to a blank screen. The Xbox had not yet heard of such a game..
I checked the release date online, and it seems to be Feb 12th.

The DLC was released almost 2 weeks before the game came out!!!!
240 Microsoft Points for this DLC. Couldn't tell you how much the game is, it's not out yet.

Hey, I just saw an amazing movie last night and I just wanted to let everyone know. It's called Stakeland, and it is a vampire post apocalyptic style movie that totally reminded me of Fallout.

(Extremely minor spoilers ahead)

Imagine fallout's apocalypse was not caused by nuclear weapons, but by a vampire plague. That is this movie. The whole setting is very much like what you experience in your adventures through the Fallout Wasteland. Roving gangs of marauders and insane cults with safe zones etc, and of course they are on their way to a famed safe haven name "New Eden".

The music very much reminded me of Fallout, and the background ambiance will surely bring back visions of trying to cross a wasteland full of destruction. Throughout the movie you will hear random radio stations etc while they are in a car or something and it is so much like fallout. Random pirate radio stations, some sort of government spin offs etc, even cults and stuff. By the way, there is a group in the movie called the Brotherhood (Fallout had Brotherhood of Steel). Not the same at all, but every little thing reminds me of Fallout in this movie.

A must see for sure if you are a fan of Fallout's style, and or you like unique vampire movies.
I saw it on Netflix last night, it blew my mind. I am so hyped for Fallout 4! read

Went to see Jack Reacher today, it was not bad, but I got there a bit early and had time to kill. I walked over into the arcade section.. and it felt like I was in a museum rather than a place of fun.

The "arcade" had 20 or so arcade machines.. 8 of which were not working or had ratty paper warnings about "out of service". The remaining machines were a mish mash of things I have played as a kid, or very poor quality games. I know that arcades have been dead for years in general but seeing one still trying to run these days almost brought a tear to my eye. It had some of the usual hunting games, but those games were old a decade ago and since then over 10 sequals have come out for them..

The only games people were really playing were air hockey, which does not seem to lose it's appeal over time. I almost felt as though I went to a funeral and I definitely was more sad than happy for venturing into this place.

I really hope that arcades can make a comeback some day, but they really need to get their own exclusive cutting edge games or experiences that can't be done at home. I can easily see them coming back if they can put out some sort of VR or AR type of things, or even live action FPS in battle arenas with hologram bots or something..

I just hope they will come back some day, because they were great fun. read

I have had a smart phone for 2 month now, or something like that. I have tried MANY games on it, and found a couple hidden gems like Game Dev Story and things like that..

Well, I continually read news every day as always online about how consoles are ending, it's all about gaming telephones now.. PC's are dying, tablets are the future.. blah blah blah.

I really do not agree with this statement at all.. With the absolutely terrible selection and no quality control whatsoever on the smart phone market, it is a fucking treasure hunt to try to find any good game at all. While consoles may release bad games, they don't release 1000 bad games every day and hide 1 good one randomly in the mix..

With the steam box out next year, PC gaming is hardly dead. PC has 5 times the number of exclusive IP's now going to be available on your TV with controllers.. If anything, the Console will be putting everything else to shame, and PC gaming will sort of merge with consoles.

I think that these ios or phone games are like when you go to a doctors office and pick up a random magazine and skim through it until your appointment, then you drop it and forget about it forever. Whereas a "real" game for consoles or PC is like getting into a very well written book that is part of a trilogy or something. You don't want to put it down, and you go out of your way to read it and you remember your experience.

If there is one thing I want to see die, it is not consoles, pc, or smart phones. I want to see an end to those "consoles are over" "PC are now obsolete" articles. That would be sweet. read

About Skid Row TrashOne of us since 11:36 AM on 08.24.2011

Hi, my name is Skid Row Trash. I have been gaming and creating add-ons and mods for games since I was 11. I'm 30 now, and I still love gaming. My first gaming system was a NES, followed by a Sega Genesis. After that, I got the Sega CD. I think I am one of the few that actually enjoyed the hell out of that system. I had to replace my Sega Genesis once because of problems, and had to replace my Sega CD 3 times, and repair it once. My first computer ever was a 386 with a huge 40mb hard drive, dos, and eventually windows. Started out playing games like wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Commander Keen, Blake Stone, and the list really is endless.. Civ 1..

After this I got a SNES. What a fun system. This was soon after followed by a Nintendo 64, and eventually a PS1 and Gamecube. I had to exchange my PS1 once because it broke. After that I had a PS2, and an Xbox. I loved both those systems so much. I had to replace my PS2 3 times, and my Xbox 3 times due to hardware problems.

These days, I am gaming on Xbox 360, and PC. I don't bother with PS anymore because I have large hands and their analog sticks are way too close. I find both thumbs fighting each when trying to play anything on a playstation these days and much prefer the improved analog stick setup that Xbox 360 has.

I am currently on my 6th Xbox 360, and have Kinect as well.

My first one died from disc tray problems.
My second one I had Nyko Intercooler which actually melted into my xbox 360 and the 2 seperate things became 1 single entity.
My 3rd Xbox was a red ring of death
my 4th Xbox eventually wouldn't even turn on.
my 5th xbox still sorta works, but the disk tray takes like 40 tries to open and takes more and more time each attempt. Also when the door is closed it things the door is open, and thus I can't launch any games.
my 6th Xbox 360 was to replace my last one, but at the same time I wanted to have the most recent so I got a kinect package. Also, this is the first time I have had the ability to use HDMI with my Xbox 360, because all 5 xboxes I had before they kept sending me old units with only Component video.

anyways, I am a real big time gamer and like to try all games (except for sports because well.. sports are weak).